Sequence (7 page)

DR. GUZMAN draws up the sulphuric acid in a pipette.

MR. ADAMSON

That doesn't make what you're doing right.

DR. GUZMAN

Oh, so it's a matter of morality, of conscience. Why didn't you say that, instead of invoking your nebulous God construct?

She attempts to burn her way into the briefcase.

MR. ADAMSON

God gives us our conscience.

DR. GUZMAN

Actually, the conscience gene was discovered two years ago. Made quite a splash. Fox News called it “The Cheatin' Gene”! Where the hell did you get this briefcase, Mr. Bond?

MR. ADAMSON

But where did the gene come from in the first place? We are here because God created us.

DR. GUZMAN

Bullshit.

MR. ADAMSON

Prove it.

DR. GUZMAN

Prove what?

MR. ADAMSON

If you're a scientist, prove God doesn't exist.

DR. GUZMAN

That's impossible.

MR. ADAMSON

Exactly.

DR. GUZMAN

But that's the wrong question. Unicorns with paisley headbands may have roamed the planet a million years ago. But they didn't
need
to. The God hypothesis was advanced to fill a void. To explain the inexplicable. So the better question is, can we prove the
need
for God doesn't exist?

MR. ADAMSON

And?

DR. GUZMAN

And I can.

Auditorium

The phone continues to ring.

THEO

I don't think so. That's Vegas on the phone. They want my pick.

CYNTHIA

Fine, go ahead, risk it all. But if
I'm
right, if Fibonacci is right, your next pick should be tails.

THEO

Say it does come up tails. Then what?

CYNTHIA

Then you take a cold shower.

THEO

No, I mean, what if your Fibonacci sequence holds true? What would that mean? That maybe somebody is trying to tell me something? That I have some pretty powerful cosmic forces in my corner?

CYNTHIA

Sure. You're a conduit to the spiritual centre of the universe. God is speaking to you via your coin flips. You do have quite the ego.

THEO's phone stops ringing.

I should be going. You have a coin to flip. And a God complex to indulge.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

God is unnecessary. God is redundant. There is nothing in the universe that cannot be explained by science. We are the product of genes and evolution and probability. We do not need God to be our fudge factor.

DR. GUZMAN looks in a drawer.

MR. ADAMSON

So life began purely randomly. In the beginning, there was nothing. And then all of a sudden, one day, without any help from God…

DR. GUZMAN

Or aliens.

MR. ADAMSON

All of a sudden, life appears.

DR. GUZMAN

Plausible.

MR. ADAMSON

Far-fetched.

DR. GUZMAN

Of course. But far less far-fetched than postulating divine intervention.

MR. ADAMSON

So life magically appears one day…

DR. GUZMAN

Not magically. First there was the Big Bang. Or does His existence preclude the Big Bang?

MR. ADAMSON

Not if He was the Big Banger.

DR. GUZMAN

Well, unfortunately, since He hadn't yet created plasma tv, or actual plasma for that matter, we'll never know for sure what actually happened at the moment of the Big Bang. Everyone has their own theory.

DR. GUZMAN finds a Bunsen burner.

Let's see how your 007 briefcase likes a thousand degrees Celsius.

MR. ADAMSON

Heads!

DR. GUZMAN

N equals three? Why not? Let there be heads.

DR. GUZMAN flips another coin. This time she doesn't even try to catch it. She doesn't bother looking for it.

MR. ADAMSON searches for the coin.

But we do have a supercollider that can approximate the condition of the universe one billionth of a second
after
the Big Bang, which gave us the Higgs boson, your “God particle,” followed by the main attraction, our entire universe.

MR. ADAMSON

But not life.

MR. ADAMSON locates the coin.

It's tails.

DR. GUZMAN

But everything necessary for life. First came our sun. Then came the earth and its big primordial soup, the prebiotic oceans, from which the first self-replicating DNA was born.

MR. ADAMSON

Spontaneously. Randomly. Miraculously.

DR. GUZMAN

Yes. Yes. And hell no!

DR. GUZMAN finds a flint lighter.

MR. ADAMSON

So life began on Earth at the exact time and place when conditions could support life. Our sun happened to be the perfect age. Our planet happened to be the perfect temperature. Then, out of this soup, life just began. What are the chances of that?

DR. GUZMAN

One in ten to the fortieth. About the same chance as a monkey sitting down at a keyboard and randomly typing a passage from Shakespeare.

MR. ADAMSON

Doesn't that seem far-fetched to you?

DR. GUZMAN

Sure. Unless.

MR. ADAMSON

Unless what?

DR. GUZMAN

Unless that monkey who sat down at a keyboard was exceptionally
lucky
, and just happened to type
Hamlet
on its very first try.

DR. GUZMAN tries to light the Bunsen burner.

Mr. Adamson, are you sure you don't believe in luck?

Auditorium

THEO

Being lucky is not all it's cracked up to be. Doesn't necessarily mean you're better off. Or happier.

CYNTHIA

Poor rich baby. Money can't buy you happiness? Should we write a country song?

THEO

Forget I said anything.

CYNTHIA

In psych class, we read that lottery winners got an immediate jump in their happiness scores, but a few months later they returned back to their baseline.

THEO

So you can't change your happiness
or
your luck.

CYNTHIA

Not true. Rich people
are
happier, but only if they earn the money themselves. Stolen loot, lotteries… not so much.

THEO

Why is that?

CYNTHIA

Because it's cheating. And they feel guilty. Do you feel guilty?

THEO

Should I?

CYNTHIA

Did you know people who won the lottery with numbers they chose themselves end up happier than those who won with randomly selected numbers?

THEO

Because they think they deserve it.

CYNTHIA

Idiots.

THEO

Happy idiots.

CYNTHIA

Have you earned your wealth? Do you deserve it?

THEO

Not a penny.

CYNTHIA

There you go.

THEO

Maybe that's why I get death threats every day.

CYNTHIA

From who?

THEO

People who don't think I deserve my good fortune.

CYNTHIA

People who think you're cheating.

THEO

How do I prove I'm not?

CYNTHIA

By losing?

THEO

What if I can't lose?

CYNTHIA

Have you tried?

THEO

How exactly do you
try
to lose a coin flip?

CYNTHIA

Right. I see your point. But if you could. Would you?

Pause.

Theo, do you
want
to lose?

THEO

What I want
… doesn't matter, does it?

CYNTHIA

If only you could perform a luck-ectomy.

THEO

If only.

CYNTHIA

How would one go about doing that? Carry a black cat under a ladder on Friday the thirteenth?

From a hidden compartment in his briefcase THEO pulls out a gun.

THEO

Or maybe I could use this.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

I'm starting to think there's nothing in here.

DR. GUZMAN cannot get the Bunsen burner to light. She keeps trying.

MR. ADAMSON

Then can I have it back?

DR. GUZMAN

Perhaps we could work out a trade of some kind. Is there something
you
have that
I
might want?

MR. ADAMSON

Like what?

DR. GUZMAN

I always thought luck was a bunch of bullshit hogwash. But after enough near misses and why me's, you start to consider other hypotheses. What if I told you there are instances where somebody won the lottery, and then their child also won?

MR. ADAMSON

I would say they are blessed.

DR. GUZMAN

Dammit, think like a scientist. In a population of thousands of lottery winners, what are the chances, based on randomness alone, that there will be families with multiple winners?

MR. ADAMSON points at the board, at the previously written 13%.

MR. ADAMSON

Um… Thirteen per cent?

DR. GUZMAN

Here's the funny thing. The numbers are greater than they should be. Families are winning lotteries
disproportionately
. And how do you explain the family in Norway where a woman won the lottery. Then her father won. And then her son.

MR. ADAMSON

They're a bunch of cheaters?

DR. GUZMAN

They were investigated. And paid in full. Any other ideas?

MR. ADAMSON

Really good cheaters?

DR. GUZMAN

Did you notice the pattern? Grandfather. Daughter. Grandson.

This is the same pattern as the pant-leg gene. X-linked.

She draws an X on the board.

MR. ADAMSON

What are you saying, luck is genetic?

DR. GUZMAN

I'm asking the question.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

What the hell?

THEO

Protection. I've carried it with me since I was fourteen. I used to be an easy target.

CYNTHIA

Put it away.

THEO

Relax. It's not loaded. Fully.

CYNTHIA

What do you mean, fully?

THEO

Ever heard of Russian roulette?

THEO spins the cylinder.

CYNTHIA

It's been nice talking to you.

CYNTHIA walks toward the door.

THEO

Doesn't seem fair though, does it? I should really use three bullets, not one? To be fair.

CYNTHIA

How long have you been suicidal?

THEO

If I wanted to commit suicide, I'd put all six bullets in.

CYNTHIA

And that would end your lucky streak once and for all, wouldn't it? This time, you won't give them a choice.

THEO

Well I've been wondering… maybe I should test my luck. What do you think?

CYNTHIA

I think you need to see a shrink.

THEO

Saw one. “Depressive Disorder. Schizoid tendencies. Excessive and inappropriate guilt.” He recommended medication.

CYNTHIA

Exactly.

THEO

Then he asked me for my Final Four picks.

THEO puts the gun in his pocket.

Turns out, when it comes to actually pulling the trigger, I'm a chicken. I think I was born that way.

Laboratory

DR. GUZMAN

What if people are born lucky? Or unlucky? Some families are tall. Some have blue eyes. And some families you'd swear have horseshoes up their ass. How else do you explain the Bush presidencies?

MR. ADAMSON

How is that even possible? I mean, I see how a genetic defect can give you a disease. But how could this work with luck?

DR. GUZMAN

In order to answer that, you'd have to understand the molecular basis of luck.

MR. ADAMSON

Which is?

DR. GUZMAN

Damned if I know.

She gives up on the Bunsen burner, throws the lighter across the room.

But that doesn't mean I can't hypothesize. Let's say you have a gene that makes you smell bad. You lack an enzyme. Upshot is, you stink.

MR. ADAMSON

I stink?

DR. GUZMAN

So you go through life smelly. Girls don't like you. Teachers don't like you. You can't get a job. Maybe you step in front of a car, end up in a wheelchair. But you know what? You don't even know you smell. And you think you're just one incredibly unlucky guy.

MR. ADAMSON

You're saying if I go to Vegas and put twenty bucks on black, there's something in my genes that causes the ball to land on red?

DR. GUZMAN

Or… something makes you pick black in the first place. When you should have picked—

MR. ADAMSON

Heads!

DR. GUZMAN gives a coin to MR. ADAMSON.

DR. GUZMAN

What is luck anyway? What if it's just precognition? What if you woke up this morning and you already knew what was going to happen today?

MR. ADAMSON

I'd probably roll on past your office.

DR. GUZMAN

And go straight to the corner store to buy a lottery ticket. Wouldn't you?

MR. ADAMSON

I might.

MR. ADAMSON flips the coin, smacks it on the back of his hand.

DR. GUZMAN

And you'd win. Because you already knew the outcome. Of everything. And you'd become one very rich man.

MR. ADAMSON

Tails.

MR. ADAMSON looks to the heavens in frustration.

DR. GUZMAN

But if nobody knew you could see the future, if nobody knew your secret, the world would just think you were one very lucky guy.

Auditorium

CYNTHIA

Were you born lucky? Were you a lucky child?

THEO

I wouldn't say that. Missed a lot of school. I was kind of a loner. My best friends were probably Ernie and Bert.

CYNTHIA

You mean Bert and Ernie. Who says Ernie and Bert?

THEO

Lots of people, check it out.

CYNTHIA

I will. Were your parents lucky?

THEO

My dad committed suicide when I was three.

CYNTHIA

So where did
your
luck come from?

THEO

It remains a mystery. Nobody can figure it out. Turns out I'm a normal guy. With a big schlong.